Page 12 of The Prodigy

6

Malika

Married.

Married?

Married?!!

I still couldn’t make sense of the word.

Jaz and I had been in her Mercedes for ten minutes and I was still confused. He’d said it and then walked right out the door like it was no big deal.

My head was spinning.

“I’m sorry about your father,” I said quietly, trying my best sound normal. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks.” She turned the radio down a bit. “I’m close, right?”

“About five minutes away.”

Despite the very easy instructions Jakari had given her—go down Newell for ten minutes, then turn right and ride until you see the bar on the left—Jaz still consulted her GPS. She said she had no sense of direction, and now that I’d seen her in action, I saw that she was absolutely right.

I stole a few glances at her. She looked the same as I remembered, although I’d seen her around Midling over the years. She was still beautiful. Smooth, clear dark brown skin, deep-set eyes, jet black hair that was perfectly blown out. And her clothes. Jaz was always fly, even back in high school. Gucci, Louis, Versace…she was wearing shit the rest of us only saw on girls in music videos.

There were really only two factions when it came to Jaz. You either hated her, or you wanted to be just like her. I always fell into the second category. But despite being a year ahead of her, she didn’t even know I existed.

Now here we were, thrown together by time and circumstance. She seemed nice. Not the bitch her haters thought she was back then.

My wheels began to turn.

She was a woman. A sister. A daughter. Maybe, justmaybeshe’d show me mercy and let me go. She probably had no idea what was going on. If I told her, she’d take my side. I was being held against my will. What fellow woman wouldn’t do what she could to help?

I started slow.

“Didn’t you go to Hightower?” I said softly.

“Mm hm.” She turned the radio all the way down. “Why?”

“I went there, too.”

Silence.

“And…um…what year did you come out?”

“Five years ago,” she said. “I got kept back one year.”

Shocker.

“So what are you up to now?”

“I work with Eris—my brother, the one you met. We work at the barbershop. I’m on front desk sometimes.”

“You like it?”

She shrugged. “It’s alright. It’s flexible, so that’s good. Sometimes my boyfriend wants to fly me out to a show, and my brother always lets me. So that’s cool.”

Jackpot. She was beaming as she said this, her voice full of pride.

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